Santo Domingo.- Several union and social organizations expressed their concern about the transgression of the Constitution and democracy, which would result in the approval and modification of the Organic Law of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), granting itself the jurisdiction of professional unions and other associations, as recently announced by the Senate.
The Bar Association of the Dominican Republic (CARD), together with the Dominican Alliance Against Corruption (ADOCCO), and the Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT), particularly draw the attention of the deputies, so that they correct the aforementioned discrepancies, contents in the project approved by the senate.
They cited article 12, paragraph 10, which establishes powers outside the constitutional criteria and guidelines, which allows the TSE to “decide conflicts that arise within the union associations constituted by law as a public law corporation and the unions or the legally constituted associations, on the occasion of the holding of elections to elect their directors…”,
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In similar terms it is also expressed in relation to the protections of article 32 and its paragraph.
The union that brings together lawyers explained that not even for the Legislative Branch, the most powerful and representative of the Public Powers, at least in theory and given its broad representativeness, would the capacity to legislate deviating from the constitutional mandate be available.
Article 214 of the Constitution defines the TSE as “the body competent to judge and decide definitively on contentious electoral matters and to rule on disputes that arise within parties, groups and political movements or between them. “It will regulate, in accordance with the law, the procedures within its jurisdiction and everything related to its organization and administrative and financial operation.”
The civil society entities assured that the TSE is an exceptional and specialized political justice system, strictly and exclusively for issues of a democratic and electoral nature, especially within the framework of public powers and the Constitution, never focused on the private. Consequently, assuming jurisdiction over guilds and other associations would be absurd and denaturalization of functions.
“We would be in the presence of a dangerous and undemocratic precedent for the rule of law, with the capture and co-option of political control over the unions, in a clear attack on freedom of association,” they stated in a joint document.
“Hence, we call on all associations (Medical College, College of Journalists and Engineers, Dominican Association of Teachers, Business Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations, Neighborhood Clubs and Associations, etc.), for the purposes of make common cause in a resistance front to prevent and demand respect for the Constitution and the decisions of the Constitutional Court,” they added.
Likewise, they reiterated that this is a violation of the Constitution and precedents of the Constitutional Court (TC), where they cited, among many others, the decision of the last interpreter of the Constitution, when in 2021 by ruling (TC/0508/21) declared unconstitutional the powers that the legislator had conferred on the TSE in all the electoral laws, by endowing them respectively with its organic law, the Electoral Regime Law and the Political Parties Law, of the power to judge electoral crimes, something as the TC explained at the time, outside its powers, with the understanding that they had to adhere to the criteria and guidelines of Article 214 of the Constitution.
They say that other issues contained in the law impose a bad example and prostitution to the social security scheme in the Dominican Republic, by creating and deepening existing inequalities, irritatingly privileging TSE judges with benefits and salaries equivalent to those of the TC.
In addition to unlimited vehicle exemptions every three years, diplomatic passports, firearms of any caliber, official license plates for assigned and personal vehicles, life and health insurance for themselves and their family members, even extended to outgoing judges who will also enjoy for life of the same benefits, under a special condition of emeritus judges, all subject to the regulations of the judges themselves, they only last 4 years in office.
Finally, the representatives of the convening entities, Trajano Potentini, president of the Card; Julio Cesar de la Rosa of Adocco; Máximo Calzado Reyes and Ernesto Dotel of FJT, recalled that in 2021 the TC denied the TSE the possibility of jurisdiction over electoral crimes, given by law, resulting in a greater contradiction in the claim to be competent for union litigation and other associations.
«Even further from its nature, in that virtue we announce that if the corresponding nonsense occurs we will go to all possible instances, both national and international until we restore legality and respect for the right that unions and associations have, to their independence as entities. of private law, outside the control and management of politics.
